Description
The cloud really dovetails into business intelligence in the sense that if a company doesn’t have the skill sets or the people to really see the value of business intelligence, or the processes in place.
Business intelligence is a top enterprise application priority, while cloud computing is a
hot topic on the infrastructure side of the house. But thinking about one in light of the
other hasn’t been a big enterprise trend.
That may change soon. Business intelligence on its own brings competitive edge, as
does cloud computing. Might combining the two, creating business intelligence as a
service, as it were, unleash even greater advantages?
Eric Hungate, CIO for the Texas Association of School Boards, thinks so.
“The cloud really dovetails into business intelligence in the sense that if a company
doesn’t have the skill sets or the people to really see the value of business intelligence,
or the processes in place, it could tap into a cloud, potentially, and get some economies
of scale, leverage what’s there, and hopefully move things along a little faster,” he says.
Hungate shared his insights in a recent CIO magazine roundtable on business intel-
ligence and cloud computing. Joining Hungate in the discussion were Ramon Baez, CIO
for Kimberly-Clark Corp., and Ira Schwartz, senior vice president and CIO for Allied North
America. Like many of their peers, these executives agree that business intelligence is a
must, cloud computing a near-term consideration, and business intelligence as a cloud
service a likely future.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: HOT APPLICATION TREND, BIG VALUE
Just as they did in 2009, business intelligence and cloud computing services are among
the top 10 technology priorities identi?ed in CIO’s Technology Priorities Survey for 2010.
SOUL MATES:
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLOUD
CIOs see
this blend
improving
processes
and driving
business
results
In the latest survey, 51 percent of nearly 800 participating CIOs cited business intel-
ligence as being on their radar for the coming year. (Its counterpart, business process
management, was also rated a priority by the same percentage of respondents.)
IBM data clearly shows that a top priority for CIOs is using data culled from company
stockpiles to gain competitive advantage and improve business decision making. In a
recent IBM study of more than 2,500 CIOs worldwide, 83 percent of respondents identi-
?ed business intelligence and analytics as the way they will enhance their organiza-
tions’ competitiveness.
Baez, who oversees IT operations at Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark, a $19 billion global
consumer goods company with nearly 53,000 employees worldwide and operations in
37 countries, says he understands why business intelligence rates so high among his
CIO peers: “Business intelligence is like frosting on the cake.”
If business intelligence is the frosting, the cake is the corporate enterprise resource
planning system. “A lot of companies have had ERP systems in place, but with those
transactional systems, getting the information out is dif?cult,” Baez explains. “You get
a lot of data, but it’s dif?cult to get the information you need to make decisions quickly.
At Kimberly-Clark, I’ve found that business intelligence gives us the value that we’ve
been promised with ERP all these years.”
Business intelligence has been “a wonderful thing” for Allied North America, a leading
construction insurance brokerage ?rm headquartered in Jericho, N.Y., says Schwartz,
especially for Allied clients—primarily contractors, builders and owners on construc-
tion sites—which the company supports via 800 extranets. “They’re now able to drill
through their own information from their portal,” he says. Echoing Baez’s remarks
about ERP systems, Schwartz adds, “What I put in, I want to get out, but the transac-
tional system just doesn’t give me an easy way to do that.”
And lest metaphors like “frosting on the cake” make business intelligence sound some-
what frivolous, be assured that these and other CIOs consider it anything but. Sound
business intelligence can spell the difference between a company’s survival or demise,
especially in times like these.
At Kimberly-Clark, business intelligence is helping the company not only survive but
thrive, Baez says. “Information, valuable information, is incredibly important in making
that happen. Our leaders are using this valuable information and taking action,” adds
Baez, attributing positive earnings in part to business intelligence capabilities.
For example, Kimberly-Clark’s sourcing organization has used business intelligence
information on pricing across the globe to make sure it’s leveraging its size to get the
best deals on raw materials. It also gathers point-of-sale information from major cus-
tomers, merges it with data it purchases, and derives marketing strategy, Baez says.
That, in a nutshell, is the real value proposition of business intelligence: Access to
relevant business information and analysis, be it about diaper preferences in Asia or
school safety policy in Texas, enables smart decision making. The result is increased
agility, ?exibility and responsiveness to changing business requirements and competi-
tive demands.
If business
intelligence is
the frosting,
the cake is
the corporate
enterprise
resource
CLOUD COMPUTING:
BIG INFRASTRUCTURE HYPE, GREAT BUSINESS PROMISE
Though in an earlier stage of adoption than business intelligence, cloud computing is
all about increasing agility, ?exibility and business responsiveness. No surprise, then,
that 60 percent of respondents to CIO’s Technology Priorities survey expressed high
interest in cloud computing services as part of their 2010 IT agendas.
Cloud computing offers enterprises the promise of self-service, on-demand access to a
highly interconnected and massively scalable pool of IT resources on a pay-as-you-go
basis. Users might be able to get software, infrastructure or platforms as a service, for
example. Some companies will build private clouds, others will tap into public cloud
services, and others will use a hybrid model that leverages both.
For small organizations like the Texas Association of School Boards, cloud computing
can be a great way to cut day-to-day expenses, Hungate says. But TASB even sees op-
portunity in becoming a cloud provider itself. With excess capacity from a new virtual
data center, “We’re noodling on the idea of providing school districts the ability to get
basic infrastructure as a service from TASB,” Hungate adds.
No matter which model they use, companies must determine how cloud computing ?ts
their business needs. The potential cost bene?ts and ef?ciency gains are too good to
ignore, even in the face of security and data privacy concerns.
“We can talk about security and where the data is, but the numbers are compelling and
you can’t get away from them,” Schwartz says. “They’re going to be compelling enough
that the cloud will be made to work. This is where things are going to go.”
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND CLOUD COMPUTING:
ACCELERATING THE POTENTIAL
If business intelligence is a top application priority and cloud computing a can’t-ignore
infrastructure model, then intertwining the two seems logical. Business intelligence as
a service is an intriguing concept, and not just for small companies.
Done right, business intelligence bolsters a company’s competitiveness and, some
would say, ensures its success. That said, getting buy-in for a business intelligence pro-
gram isn’t always easy, especially with tight budgets requiring tough scrutiny. Develop-
ing the infrastructure for business intelligence projects can be costly, and without perva-
sive support from pertinent players, the return on investment might be long in coming.
Enter the cloud computing model, with its ability to streamline costs and improve ef-
?ciency by delivering software—in this case, business intelligence software—as a ser-
vice. A cloud, with its in?nitely scalable pool of resources, makes an ideal platform for
the heavy number crunching and data analysis required in many business intelligence
projects. And cloud storage facilities are the perfect venue for the big data stockpiles
associated with business intelligence initiatives.
With considerations such as these, many companies will ?nd the notion of buying busi-
ness intelligence as a service to be much more palatable than undertaking a major soft-
ware project and corresponding infrastructure upgrade. Even those that already have
invested in business intelligence might ?nd appeal in the ability to grab more analytics
services out of the cloud on a case-by-case basis.
Cloud
computing
offers
enterprises
the promise of
self-service,
on-demand
access to
a highly
interconnected
and massively
scalable pool
of IT resources
on a pay-as-
you-go basis
COMMONSENSE ECONOMICS
The economics of cloud-based business intelligence is indeed promising, but so is time
to market, Baez says. Discovering a new product opportunity based on data garnered
from business intelligence and speeding that onto store shelves is the goal for any sort
of analytics project. “What makes software as a service so appealing is the dollars you
save and then how quickly you can generate value,” he adds.
Hungate agrees. When it comes to business intelligence, “the cloud sets up a bit of
a structure, where if you don’t have the skill set or the analytics in-house, you can go
there. This can provide some real economies of scale,” he says.
IBM itself is committed to the concept of business intelligence in the cloud. Through
Blue Insight, an internal cloud for business analytics, the company provides its sales
teams and developers—more than 200,000 IBMers—new levels of insight to better
meet client needs. Blue Insight gathers information from nearly 100 different informa-
tion warehouses and data stores, providing analytics on more than a petabyte of data.
“This new cloud and the insights that our analytics will provide are the next step in the
continuous transformation of our business to better serve our clients,” says IBM CIO
Pat Toole. “I expect this ?rst-of-its-kind approach will help drive both new growth op-
portunities as well as have a signi?cant impact in cost savings, which is exactly the kind
of client-focused value that businesses are asking of their IT organizations.”
Via Blue Insight, IBM expects sales teams to gain a deeper understanding of a client’s
relationship with the company on a global scale, not just regionally or by product type.
From that view will come the ability to better predict which products and services will
deliver the best value for a client.
QUICKER ANALYSES, SMOOTHER PROCESSES
Likewise, product development teams will be able to run quick analyses of sales infor-
mation, industry trends and customer perceptions. With this data in hand comes the
ability to adjust product plans and development speci?cations almost on the ?y.
Running business intelligence in the cloud also would help smooth the manufactur-
ing process. Engineers, for example, would be able to evaluate real-time data on the
plant ?oor to identify trends and adjust manufacturing processes as needed to improve
yields and reduce shipment delivery times.
While IBM has high expectations for business improvements via Blue Insight, it an-
ticipates business intelligence in the cloud having great bene?ts for customers too.
Toward that end, it has developed a business intelligence cloud service for large
enterprises. IBM Smart Analytics Cloud lets enterprises consume business intelligence
services, systems and software so they can ef?ciently share analytics across lines of
business and functional organizations. Smart Analytics Cloud comprises IBM Cognos 8
BI software and the System z mainframe server, topped off by help from the company’s
services team in working with business intelligence in the cloud.
For CIOs, business intelligence as a service clearly is worth evaluating. With the prom-
ise of streamlined operations, faster reporting, less costly intelligence and greater
agility, what’s not to like? •
“What makes
software as
a service so
appealing is
the dollars
you save and
then how
quickly you
can generate
value”
doc_386071007.pdf
The cloud really dovetails into business intelligence in the sense that if a company doesn’t have the skill sets or the people to really see the value of business intelligence, or the processes in place.
Business intelligence is a top enterprise application priority, while cloud computing is a
hot topic on the infrastructure side of the house. But thinking about one in light of the
other hasn’t been a big enterprise trend.
That may change soon. Business intelligence on its own brings competitive edge, as
does cloud computing. Might combining the two, creating business intelligence as a
service, as it were, unleash even greater advantages?
Eric Hungate, CIO for the Texas Association of School Boards, thinks so.
“The cloud really dovetails into business intelligence in the sense that if a company
doesn’t have the skill sets or the people to really see the value of business intelligence,
or the processes in place, it could tap into a cloud, potentially, and get some economies
of scale, leverage what’s there, and hopefully move things along a little faster,” he says.
Hungate shared his insights in a recent CIO magazine roundtable on business intel-
ligence and cloud computing. Joining Hungate in the discussion were Ramon Baez, CIO
for Kimberly-Clark Corp., and Ira Schwartz, senior vice president and CIO for Allied North
America. Like many of their peers, these executives agree that business intelligence is a
must, cloud computing a near-term consideration, and business intelligence as a cloud
service a likely future.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: HOT APPLICATION TREND, BIG VALUE
Just as they did in 2009, business intelligence and cloud computing services are among
the top 10 technology priorities identi?ed in CIO’s Technology Priorities Survey for 2010.
SOUL MATES:
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLOUD
CIOs see
this blend
improving
processes
and driving
business
results
In the latest survey, 51 percent of nearly 800 participating CIOs cited business intel-
ligence as being on their radar for the coming year. (Its counterpart, business process
management, was also rated a priority by the same percentage of respondents.)
IBM data clearly shows that a top priority for CIOs is using data culled from company
stockpiles to gain competitive advantage and improve business decision making. In a
recent IBM study of more than 2,500 CIOs worldwide, 83 percent of respondents identi-
?ed business intelligence and analytics as the way they will enhance their organiza-
tions’ competitiveness.
Baez, who oversees IT operations at Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark, a $19 billion global
consumer goods company with nearly 53,000 employees worldwide and operations in
37 countries, says he understands why business intelligence rates so high among his
CIO peers: “Business intelligence is like frosting on the cake.”
If business intelligence is the frosting, the cake is the corporate enterprise resource
planning system. “A lot of companies have had ERP systems in place, but with those
transactional systems, getting the information out is dif?cult,” Baez explains. “You get
a lot of data, but it’s dif?cult to get the information you need to make decisions quickly.
At Kimberly-Clark, I’ve found that business intelligence gives us the value that we’ve
been promised with ERP all these years.”
Business intelligence has been “a wonderful thing” for Allied North America, a leading
construction insurance brokerage ?rm headquartered in Jericho, N.Y., says Schwartz,
especially for Allied clients—primarily contractors, builders and owners on construc-
tion sites—which the company supports via 800 extranets. “They’re now able to drill
through their own information from their portal,” he says. Echoing Baez’s remarks
about ERP systems, Schwartz adds, “What I put in, I want to get out, but the transac-
tional system just doesn’t give me an easy way to do that.”
And lest metaphors like “frosting on the cake” make business intelligence sound some-
what frivolous, be assured that these and other CIOs consider it anything but. Sound
business intelligence can spell the difference between a company’s survival or demise,
especially in times like these.
At Kimberly-Clark, business intelligence is helping the company not only survive but
thrive, Baez says. “Information, valuable information, is incredibly important in making
that happen. Our leaders are using this valuable information and taking action,” adds
Baez, attributing positive earnings in part to business intelligence capabilities.
For example, Kimberly-Clark’s sourcing organization has used business intelligence
information on pricing across the globe to make sure it’s leveraging its size to get the
best deals on raw materials. It also gathers point-of-sale information from major cus-
tomers, merges it with data it purchases, and derives marketing strategy, Baez says.
That, in a nutshell, is the real value proposition of business intelligence: Access to
relevant business information and analysis, be it about diaper preferences in Asia or
school safety policy in Texas, enables smart decision making. The result is increased
agility, ?exibility and responsiveness to changing business requirements and competi-
tive demands.
If business
intelligence is
the frosting,
the cake is
the corporate
enterprise
resource
CLOUD COMPUTING:
BIG INFRASTRUCTURE HYPE, GREAT BUSINESS PROMISE
Though in an earlier stage of adoption than business intelligence, cloud computing is
all about increasing agility, ?exibility and business responsiveness. No surprise, then,
that 60 percent of respondents to CIO’s Technology Priorities survey expressed high
interest in cloud computing services as part of their 2010 IT agendas.
Cloud computing offers enterprises the promise of self-service, on-demand access to a
highly interconnected and massively scalable pool of IT resources on a pay-as-you-go
basis. Users might be able to get software, infrastructure or platforms as a service, for
example. Some companies will build private clouds, others will tap into public cloud
services, and others will use a hybrid model that leverages both.
For small organizations like the Texas Association of School Boards, cloud computing
can be a great way to cut day-to-day expenses, Hungate says. But TASB even sees op-
portunity in becoming a cloud provider itself. With excess capacity from a new virtual
data center, “We’re noodling on the idea of providing school districts the ability to get
basic infrastructure as a service from TASB,” Hungate adds.
No matter which model they use, companies must determine how cloud computing ?ts
their business needs. The potential cost bene?ts and ef?ciency gains are too good to
ignore, even in the face of security and data privacy concerns.
“We can talk about security and where the data is, but the numbers are compelling and
you can’t get away from them,” Schwartz says. “They’re going to be compelling enough
that the cloud will be made to work. This is where things are going to go.”
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND CLOUD COMPUTING:
ACCELERATING THE POTENTIAL
If business intelligence is a top application priority and cloud computing a can’t-ignore
infrastructure model, then intertwining the two seems logical. Business intelligence as
a service is an intriguing concept, and not just for small companies.
Done right, business intelligence bolsters a company’s competitiveness and, some
would say, ensures its success. That said, getting buy-in for a business intelligence pro-
gram isn’t always easy, especially with tight budgets requiring tough scrutiny. Develop-
ing the infrastructure for business intelligence projects can be costly, and without perva-
sive support from pertinent players, the return on investment might be long in coming.
Enter the cloud computing model, with its ability to streamline costs and improve ef-
?ciency by delivering software—in this case, business intelligence software—as a ser-
vice. A cloud, with its in?nitely scalable pool of resources, makes an ideal platform for
the heavy number crunching and data analysis required in many business intelligence
projects. And cloud storage facilities are the perfect venue for the big data stockpiles
associated with business intelligence initiatives.
With considerations such as these, many companies will ?nd the notion of buying busi-
ness intelligence as a service to be much more palatable than undertaking a major soft-
ware project and corresponding infrastructure upgrade. Even those that already have
invested in business intelligence might ?nd appeal in the ability to grab more analytics
services out of the cloud on a case-by-case basis.
Cloud
computing
offers
enterprises
the promise of
self-service,
on-demand
access to
a highly
interconnected
and massively
scalable pool
of IT resources
on a pay-as-
you-go basis
COMMONSENSE ECONOMICS
The economics of cloud-based business intelligence is indeed promising, but so is time
to market, Baez says. Discovering a new product opportunity based on data garnered
from business intelligence and speeding that onto store shelves is the goal for any sort
of analytics project. “What makes software as a service so appealing is the dollars you
save and then how quickly you can generate value,” he adds.
Hungate agrees. When it comes to business intelligence, “the cloud sets up a bit of
a structure, where if you don’t have the skill set or the analytics in-house, you can go
there. This can provide some real economies of scale,” he says.
IBM itself is committed to the concept of business intelligence in the cloud. Through
Blue Insight, an internal cloud for business analytics, the company provides its sales
teams and developers—more than 200,000 IBMers—new levels of insight to better
meet client needs. Blue Insight gathers information from nearly 100 different informa-
tion warehouses and data stores, providing analytics on more than a petabyte of data.
“This new cloud and the insights that our analytics will provide are the next step in the
continuous transformation of our business to better serve our clients,” says IBM CIO
Pat Toole. “I expect this ?rst-of-its-kind approach will help drive both new growth op-
portunities as well as have a signi?cant impact in cost savings, which is exactly the kind
of client-focused value that businesses are asking of their IT organizations.”
Via Blue Insight, IBM expects sales teams to gain a deeper understanding of a client’s
relationship with the company on a global scale, not just regionally or by product type.
From that view will come the ability to better predict which products and services will
deliver the best value for a client.
QUICKER ANALYSES, SMOOTHER PROCESSES
Likewise, product development teams will be able to run quick analyses of sales infor-
mation, industry trends and customer perceptions. With this data in hand comes the
ability to adjust product plans and development speci?cations almost on the ?y.
Running business intelligence in the cloud also would help smooth the manufactur-
ing process. Engineers, for example, would be able to evaluate real-time data on the
plant ?oor to identify trends and adjust manufacturing processes as needed to improve
yields and reduce shipment delivery times.
While IBM has high expectations for business improvements via Blue Insight, it an-
ticipates business intelligence in the cloud having great bene?ts for customers too.
Toward that end, it has developed a business intelligence cloud service for large
enterprises. IBM Smart Analytics Cloud lets enterprises consume business intelligence
services, systems and software so they can ef?ciently share analytics across lines of
business and functional organizations. Smart Analytics Cloud comprises IBM Cognos 8
BI software and the System z mainframe server, topped off by help from the company’s
services team in working with business intelligence in the cloud.
For CIOs, business intelligence as a service clearly is worth evaluating. With the prom-
ise of streamlined operations, faster reporting, less costly intelligence and greater
agility, what’s not to like? •
“What makes
software as
a service so
appealing is
the dollars
you save and
then how
quickly you
can generate
value”
doc_386071007.pdf